


Ocean Eyes

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-11
Updated: 2012-09-11
Packaged: 2017-11-14 00:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Harry has a silent connection with the world around him)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ocean Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I edited something I posted awhile back and then deleted.... it became this monster of feels.  
> sorry.

~

Harry sits near the ocean and watches the waves pour onto the sand. He watches the waves lap against each other, the tall-tale signs of an oncoming storm. It’s the whole reason he’s not in the water, all the multi-temperature riptides swirling away, a thrumming deathtrap. His chest drips of the cold water, rising goose-bumps in its wake. The prickling hairs of his arms bend under his rough fingers as they rub the skin to a semblance of warmth. The ocean rises once again, crashing waves just a prelude of what is to come. It roars of strong winds and tidal waves to big to match, barely whispering of the gentle waves to come even later.

Harry listens with all he has, the vibrations of sand on his palms, the tinge of salt smell in the air, even the churning wind at his spine has something to say. Right now though, they all seem to be repeating a drum of whispers to leave. Its distinct urgency raises his eyes from the grayed clouds and his body from the sanded earth. He grabs his few things, shoes, socks, sunglasses, and his worn tee, relishing in the first drops of rain. Harry checks his surroundings, finding nothing but stray cats and empty cars; even the surf shop he frequents is closed, the neon of  _Ed’s Surf Essentials_  unlit and the usually wide open doors closed for storm. Harry allows his tongue to leave his mouth, catching a few drops, before pulling them back between his teeth. He looks around, still wary of people seeing his childish impulse. It’s a thing he likes to keep behind tattered doors, all the little parts of him that aren’t so grown up. He’s unfortunately childish by nature, something he tries to quell with work and thick books by men long dead.

It’s a routine that works from 9am-6pm on weekdays, those hours he has to spend in closed rooms with teary eyed mothers and withered children. He feels older then, listening to fragments of their lives. Harry feels all but 19 until he hits the shore, a voice calling his inner child into the pound of waves. It’s a voice that makes him feel so young and never alone.

He steps to the cracked stucco of his rundown building, harshly shaking the door by its knob, waiting for the click to let him in. Paint is chipping of in gaggles, coming apart faster now that he has to abuse his home just to get in. It’s not the look he’s paying for though, it’s the area. Just a short walk from the beach, something he shouldn’t really be able to afford, but he’s got ways. Harry knows people in high places, secrets that can’t get out, and things that shouldn’t have happened. So he is able to scrape by, month by month and hour by hour, wasting time in this rotting square.

It’s not the way he imagined it, living alone; being alone. He remembers the thought of freedom, something he isn’t sure he has now that he is really alone. More so he remembers the urge to help people. Harry isn’t sure he is doing that either. It’s different being in white rooms with actual therapists, being asked his thoughts and praised for being such _a natural._  But—the things that really go on… that isn’t how he imagined helping people. He doesn’t see how the pills help anything—the mental, the emotional scars—how can medicine erase those things? How does making someone a zombie make them better?

Scary is the only way to describe it, maybe heartbreaking too, but Harry always seems to be the bleeding heart of his workplace. Watching people come in one session with so much to say, all their feelings just pouring out, but in the next session all that’s uttered is  _its working, I don’t feel anything at all._ It shakes him; makes him want to leave this profession. Almost to the point he considers diving down deep, swimming out far and never coming back. But—he’s got amends to make—and maybe, just maybe, those pills are saving lives.

That’s what Harry tries to tell himself anyway.

~

When Harry lays to rest, falling asleep instantly when his head hits the pillow, he dreams. Snatches of water logged conversation and lines of psychology books, even the few whimpers and cries of bland walls people pay too much for. It changes though, from meaningless cries of mothers to desperate children, their pleas for sanity chiming all one after the other. Their voices clump into a scattered symphony, tired and  _soso_  alone. Then, in a sudden rush the words change, the voices combining into one familiar tone; one that hasn’t spoken in five years.

Harry wakes in a cold sweat, the wind and waves blocked by walls. Leaving him in a dreary silence to choke in air and grasp at the space between his ribs, they are silent. The words though he can hear, so clear, so absolute. They circle around his brain and fall into his gut, heavy weights of betrayal and guilt. Harry heaves and reaches for the bin at his bedside. There, with chills along his form and tears in his eyes Harry tries to retch away his memories.

~


End file.
